Monday, February 09, 2009

San Francisco's Chinese New Year Parade

Angela, Vito and two of our FSUSD bowling mates, Crystal and Nic, rode BART into San Francisco on Saturday. We arrived in the city at around 3PM, and the streets in the Financial District were deserted. It appeared that nothing special whatsoever would occur, but as we moved closer to China Town, we began to notice preparations for the parade: police gates along the sidewalks blocking off alleyways and side streets, bleachers, people sitting in chairs along the sidewalks, clusters of tourists standing around.

Angela had read about a street fair, and we wanted to wander through that prior to sitting down for a bite to eat before the parade. While we were approaching the R & G Lounge, the sounds of a drummer and a number of cymbal-beaters rained down on us, and raised our level of excitement considerably. We had found the action.

It's hard to believe that I lived in the city for thirteen years and never once thought about catching the Chinese New Year Parade. Better than I had expected, it was more than two hours long and, as Vito dictated our maneuvers to a certain degree, we had to leave before the festivities ended.

Anyway, enough preamble. Here is one of the highlights of the evening: